Description:
Operations Research (OR) is the discipline of applying advanced analytical methods to help make better decisions. By using various techniques such as mathematical modelling, statistics, and optimization algorithms, OR gives executives the power to analyze complex systems and to make more effective decisions to build highly productive systems.
To achieve these results, OR professionals draw upon the latest analytical technologies, including:
Probability and Statistics: helping measure risk, mine data to find valuable connections and insights, test conclusions, and make reliable forecasts
Optimization: narrowing choices to the very best when there are virtually innumerable feasible options and comparing them is difficult
Simulation: giving the ability to try out approaches and test ideas for improvement
Some examples in which OR is used are:
Locating a warehouse or distributions centre to deliver materials to reduce transportation costs
Production planning
Scheduling: personnel, machines, project tasks
Managing the ow of raw material and products in a supply chain
Designing the layout of a factory for efficient ow of materials
Constructing a telecommunications network
Determining the routes of snow plowing vehicles to minimize the time required to clear snow and ice from the streets
Nowadays, the problems are becoming more complicated, and there are many new factors showing up, which increases the problems complexity. Therefore, OR specialties need to be aware of what is new in order to evaluate problems complexity, which is considered a crucial skill in the operations research domain.
During the last decade, the evolutionary in Information Technology (IT) systems had a significant impact on every aspect of our daily life. One of the most radical changes is the shift from computers to smart devices utilizing the infrastructure services based on cloud computing. This new beginning of the Internet era, marked by integrated computer-based automation and ubiquitous computing systems, is moreover being connected to the wireless network by the Internet. The implementation of this kind of network within the production and operations environment is termed Industry 4.0 revolution [1].
In this project, the following tasks should be performed:
(1) What does Industry 4.0 mean? What are the impacts of industry 4.0 on our daily life? How industry 4.0 increased the problem complexity?
(2) What are the key factors of Industry 4.0?
(3) Identify the pros and cons of Industry 4.0.
(4) Summarize your findings.
(5) For each reference, identify the following: Purpose, Design/methodology/approach, Findings, Research limitations/implications, and practical implications.
(6) Identify some future developments?

Formatting:
Reports must be formatted for US letter (not A4) size paper. The text must be formatted in a two-column layout, with columns no more than 9.5 in. tall and 3.5 in. wide. The text must be in Times font, 10-point or larger, with 11-point or larger line spacing. You are encouraged to use the IEEE conference proceedings templates. Here you can find the template:
https://www.ieee.org/conferences/publishing/templates.html